Alternative remedy use common among infertile

Alternative remedy use common among infertile | Reuters: "More than a quarter of northern California couples followed in a study sought help from acupuncture, herbal therapy and massage-often as a complement to conventional conception strategies such as in vitro fertilization. Rates were especially high among wealthy, older couples.

'We suggest that couples struggling to achieve pregnancy are more likely to seek out any treatment that offers hope,' Dr. James Smith of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study, told Reuters Health in an email.

The research is the first in the U.S. to quantify the use of complementary and alternative medicine for infertility-a problem that afflicts 7 to 17 percent of American couples, note the researchers in the journal Fertility and Sterility. Overall, studies have shown that up to 40 percent of Americans use such remedies for all conditions.

As a first step toward understanding what motivates a couple's decision to pursue alternative remedies, Smith and his team recruited 428 couples from eight reproductive clinics and followed them via questionnaires and interviews over the next 18 months."